CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Mara’s deteriorating condition had Anakin worried. She was being very brave and very strong, but she was tiring more easily and had begun to withdraw. He could feel her drawing on the Force more and more to sustain herself. It clearly fortified her, but demanded so much of her attention and concentration that he was pretty sure she had no idea where she was or who he was a chunk of the time.

He did his best to see that she did not want for anything. He kept the camp clean and fixed all of the meals. By observing the Dantari, he was able to find edible plants and spices, which he used to make their bland rations into something different, if not always appetizing. Mara seemed to take the failed experiments in stride along with the good and livened up a bit at mealtimes.

Tuber—which was the name Anakin had given the elder Dantari root trader—clearly had some concerns about Mara. He kept bringing firewood but wouldn’t accept the last couple of roots Anakin had. Instead they traded for other things—most of them being trinkets, which Tuber braided into his hair to frame the button Mara had provided.

Anakin set out from the camp just after a supper that Mara had eaten listlessly. She wandered back to her cot and started sleeping again. He cleaned up, then saw his supply of firewood wouldn’t last through the night. It struck him as odd that Tuber had not yet appeared, so he headed down the trail to the Dantari encampment.

He was still a good five hundred meters off when a spike of pain reached him through the Force. He thought immediately of Mara, but it didn’t have the feel he would have expected from her. He next thought of Tuber, then caught an undercurrent of fear rolling out from the Dantari camp.

Anakin crouched in the lavender grasses and slowly made his way forward. He smiled, putting into practice all the things Mara had taught him about moving stealthily through the grasses. He could have reached out with the Force to move branches that might crack underfoot or to smooth out grasses so they wouldn’t rustle. I would have done just that, but I don’t need to. I can save the Force for later.

He worked his way in toward the camp, and twenty meters away he paused in the shadow of a rock. Looking past the boulder, he saw Tuber on his knees, bleeding from cuts over one eye and across his chest. The Imperial crest there had been taken off in strips. It looked as if his captors had decided to flay him. The Dantari’s hands had been bound behind his back. The other Dantari likewise were on their knees, all looking drawn and terribly frightened.

And they had good cause to be. Standing before Tuber were two tall and lean Yuuzhan Vong warriors, both wearing chitinous armor. One bore a staff that had a flattened end like a spear point. The other had a weapon that looked the same, but was flexible and clearly functioned like a whip. The whip wielder held the jacket button in his left hand, waved it under Tuber’s nose, then snarled a question at him.

Tuber grunted a response.

The Yuuzhan Vong’s whip cracked, and another wound blossomed on the Dantari’s broad chest.

A coldness settled in Anakin’s stomach. Without a doubt he knew the Yuuzhan Vong was asking where Tuber had gotten the button. Clearly the Dantari couldn’t have produced it, and it was far newer than any of the Imperial artifacts, suggesting to the Yuuzhan Vong that other people had been here recently. Tuber was refusing to give the Yuuzhan Vong the information they wanted. He’s in trouble because we are here, because we befriended him. There was no question in Anakin’s mind that he had to do something to save the Dantari.

For a heartbeat he almost despaired. Here he was, a fifteen-year-old Jedi apprentice. He didn’t have the experience a full Jedi Knight would have. Mara had experienced trouble killing one of the Yuuzhan Vong on Belkadan. Saving the Dantari seemed impossible. It was a task that would overwhelm him.

Size matters not. Despite Mara’s having chided him for overusing Yoda’s aphorism, Anakin knew it applied now. His job, as a Jedi Knight, was to protect those who could not protect themselves. He took a deep breath, opened himself to the Force, and felt it flood through him in a way it never had before. It was water to a being dying of thirst; it was sunshine after days of rain; it was warmth after bitter cold. It was all that and more.

Anakin touched the stone behind which he crouched, and nudged it with a fraction of the Force flowing through him. The five-hundred-kilogram stone ripped itself free of the ground and hurled itself at the Yuuzhan Vong. Dirt flew off it in clumps as it spun through the air. It hit the ground again, five meters from its targets, then bounced up and caught the staff wielder in his flank. A crunching, crackling sound came from beneath the stone, then the Yuuzhan Vong’s arms and legs beat out a furious but slackening death tattoo.

Sprinting forward from behind the boulder, Anakin drew his lightsaber and settled his right thumb on the trigger button. He leapt up, then kicked off the boulder. He sailed through a high somersault that landed him behind the other Yuuzhan Vong. He ignited his violet lightsaber and lunged, driving the point into a circular depression on the armor, catching the Yuuzhan Vong just below the left armpit.

The glowing purple blade sank in deep. The Yuuzhan Vong’s pivot threatened to pull the blade from Anakin’s hand because the edges of the armor resisted cutting. The whip came about and cracked him on the left shoulder, shredding his tunic and cutting him. He knew that the blow should have taken his head off, and would have, save that the armor suddenly convulsed and constricted. The joints stiffened, restricting the Yuuzhan Vong’s movement. When the armor slackened, the warrior collapsed.

His amphistaff hissed and slithered away.

Anakin looked at the fallen Yuuzhan Vong warriors and began to tremble. He sank to his knees and killed his lightsaber’s blade. Somehow he’d managed to kill two trained warriors—warriors that had given Mara trouble. Granted, I got one with a trick, but the other … He knew his victory should have been impossible, but with the Force as his ally, he had succeeded.

Anakin felt hands on him. He looked up and saw Tuber standing over him. Somehow the Dantari’s hands had been freed. Tuber handed him a vincha root, then popped one into his own mouth and began chewing it. After a considerable amount of crunching, the Dantari spat a thick paste of vincha and saliva into his hand and started to smear it on his own wounds.

Anakin nodded and chewed the root himself. It tasted bitter and puckered his mouth immediately. He almost gagged as he swallowed some of it, but he could feel the pain beginning to ease in his shoulder. He dabbed the paste into the wound, and the pain stopped almost immediately.

No wonder they value this root so highly. Anakin slapped a hand against his forehead. And he wouldn’t take my last ones because he expected me to use them on Mara. It wasn’t a coincidence that we came to Dantooine. This stuff might not cure her disease, but it might be able to help her fight against it.

Tuber pulled Anakin to his feet. The Dantari began to bellow orders to the others in his band. They began to gather their belongings and head for the trail up to Anakin’s camp. Tuber wore a big smile on his face and shouldered the bag of vincha roots.

Anakin shook his head. He knew these primitive people had decided, somehow, that he and Mara were godlike beings who would protect them. Anakin wanted to believe that he could protect them, but he knew that allowing them to travel with him and Mara would not work. “It would be like me allowing you to build your houses in a floodplain. You’d always be in danger.”

Tuber looked down at him, puzzled.

Anakin knew what he had to do. He concentrated and gathered the Force to himself, then projected into Tuber’s mind the image of a mountain valley with long grasses and vincha plants by the dozens. It would be a place of easy living, a paradise for the Dantari. And, even though Anakin thought he was constructing this place in his mind—creating an illusion to fool Tuber—part of him knew the place was very real, and that he was seeing it as it appeared right that moment.

Anakin took quick stock of the sun’s position in the image, the length of shadows, the position of Dantooine’s larger moon, then pointed off to the northwest. “Go, there, in that direction. That will be your new home. Follow the coast and you will find it.”

Tuber blinked, then reached out with a hand as if he were trying to touch the vision he’d been given. Anakin took his hand and pointed to the northwest. “Go.” He gave the Dantari a gentle shove, then managed to keep himself upright until they crested a small hill and disappeared from sight.

Anakin sank to one knee beside the Yuuzhan Vong he’d slain with the lightsaber. The armor had another similar depression beneath the right armpit. Thin, feathery membranes filled it, and Anakin decided that the twin depressions must have been roughly akin to gills. The lightsaber had punched through the vulnerable points in the armor and killed the Yuuzhan Vong. The armor’s own death convulsion had saved Anakin’s life by hindering the warrior’s attack.

It had been a lucky shot, but he knew Luke would never accept that explanation. There is no luck, only the Force.

Weary beyond what he thought the effort should have taken out of him, Anakin stumbled off along the trail back to his camp. He smiled because, had Mara not insisted he work without the Force, he wouldn’t have had the physical strength to make it back up the incline. The little aches and pains from his exercises told him just how much farther he could go on, and he knew he’d make it back to Mara.

Darkness had fallen completely by his return, and his fire had been reduced to a glowing mound of ash-strewn coals. He grabbed the remaining vincha roots and entered Mara’s tent. She came awake instantly, then slumped back on the cot. “What is it?”

“The Yuuzhan Vong. They’re here.” He handed her a vincha root. “Here, chew this and let the juice run back down your throat. Local medicine, really good.”

Mara swiped her hands across her eyes, then looked at him. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing, but we have to get out of here.” Anakin frowned. “I think the Yuuzhan Vong have been here since the start, scouting around. Maybe they’re the source of your weakness, I don’t know. Maybe their presence enhances things under their control, and your disease could be one of those things. You felt a link on Belkadan. Here, it is more subtle since you aren’t in direct contact with the Yuuzhan Vong or their things.”

Mara nodded. “That’s a trend I’d like to continue.”

“Me, too.” He sighed. “I killed two of them, but I took them by surprise. It was almost too easy, and that has me worried.”

Mara threw back her blanket and swung her legs off the cot. “That’s good. You should be worried. I have a feeling that dealing with the Yuuzhan Vong will never be that easy again.”